LA gang violence spikes kills student

Local Search Site Search Home Today s Globe News Business Sports Lifestyle A E Things to do Travel Cars Jobs Real Estate Local Search Local National World Campaign Business Education Health Science Obituaries Special reports Traffic Weather Lottery THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING Home News Education K LA gang violence spikes kills student Associated Press Jamiel Shaw s year plan for his son was beautifully simple stay in school make the grades stay out of trouble and go off to a college far away from their gang infested neighborhood. Thomas Watkins March LA gang violence spikes kills student This undated photo provided Tuesday March by the Shaw family shows Jamiel Shaw Jr. with his Romans football team uniform at Los Angeles High School. He had been named Most Valuable Player by Los Angeles High School. The high school student was gunned down on a sidewalk a few yards from his home in what authorities are calling a random unprovoked gang attack. AP Photo Shaw! Family Email Print Text size By Thomas Watkins Associated Press Writer March LOS ANGELES Jamiel Shaw s year plan for his son was beautifully simple stay in school make the grades stay out of trouble and go off to a college far away from their gang infested neighborhood. The plan was working to perfection. Two months past his th birthday Jamiel Shaw Jr. had stayed out of gangs was a solid student and standout athlete. An ultra quick running back who led his high school s football team to a Southern League title he was attracting scholarship attention from Stanford Rutgers and other schools. Two gunshots ended the plan and Jamiel Jr. s life. I thought everything that I was doing was going to keep him from this his father said choking back tears. The boy was shot Sunday night on a sidewalk just a few doors from home close enough for Jamiel Sr. to hear the gunfire. He ran outside and found his mortally wounded son in a pool of blood. Several Los Angeles neighborhoods are exper! iencing a spate of gang violence. In the last two weeks police engaged in a gunbattle with a carload of alleged gang members after a man was shot as he walked with a child eight people five of them children were wounded when a man fired into a crowd near a bus stop and a year old boy was shot in the head and critically wounded while riding in a car with his family. What s particularly unnerving for all of us is the random nature of these shootings Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Wednesday noting that a cloak of fear has spread across parts of the city. Police Chief William Bratton acknowledged the spike in gang crime and said he s responding the same way he did in the last time there was such violence. He s putting cops on the dots meaning flooding crime hot spots with officers. Villaraigosa is calling for the hiring of at least more officers in the next two years to push the department total to . Los Angeles has recorded homicides this year a percent increase from the same time last year. Still Bratton said overall crime is down as are gang r! elated homicides from last year to so far this year. That statistic doesn t mean much to Jamiel Jr. s friends and relatives who remembered him as a happy friendly teen. He always used to have a smile on his face said Colletti Scorza who was Jamiel s track and field training partner. Jamiel s mother Army Sgt. Anita Shaw was on her second tour in Iraq and flew home to bury her son. Jamiel who was black was killed by Hispanic gang members who asked him what gang he belonged to then shot him when he didn t answer police and witnesses said. No arrests have been made. The year old boy shot in his family s car also is black. Two men both Hispanic have been arrested. Witnesses said the assailants flashed gang signs before opening fire. Bratton described the area where the year old was shot as under the influence of a Latino gang but rejected the idea that the recent violence is racially motivated. He said hate crimes would be prosecuted if evidence suggests race was a component. Bu! t he bristled at a news conference Wednesday when asked if recent shootings were indicative of wider racial problems. There are several unfortunately among you who every time we have one of these incidents want to make more out of it than it is Bratton said. Hispanics constitute about half of Los Angeles nearly million residents. As the population has surged Latinos have moved into traditionally black neighborhoods sometimes creating tension. Joe Hicks vice president of Community Advocates Inc. and former executive director of the city s Human Relations Commission said race is one part of the complex gang problem. There seems to be some reticence to talk about what is taking place Hicks said. There certainly appears to be a racialized component. Jamiel Shaw Sr. doesn t think race was a factor in his son s death noting the boy had many Hispanic friends some of them on the Los Angeles High School football team. At a candlelight vigil attended by about friends family members and neighbors the grieving father pleaded for an end to the violence. We! are so occupied with this black and brown crap that nobody is dealing with the gangs he said. We don t have no problem with black and brown. What we ve got to do is focus our attention on the gangs. Copyright Associated Press. All rights reserved. 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